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Tenaska Trailblazer Energy Center progresses

Tenaska continues to make steady progress in development of its proposed Trailblazer Energy Center, with recent milestones including securing a partial water supply and completion of engineering studies, said Helen Manroe, Tenaska development director. “As you know, we recently completed an agreement with the city of Stamford for a supply of water that will meet a portion of the Trailblazer plant’s minimal needs,” she said. “Tenaska remains committed to being the first large coal plant in Texas to use dry cooling technology, which reduces the plant’s water use by 90 percent, and using as much treated wastewater as possible in its agreements.”She said this agreement, approved unanimously by the Stamford City Council, will only use surplus treated city wastewater and surplus raw water from Lake Stamford, and would potentially provide a number of benefits for Stamford residents and businesses. The potential benefits include the City’s receipt of hundreds of thousands of dollars before the plant uses any water and the City’s receipt of millions of dollars in long-term annual revenue.“Right now, we have no customers using our treated wastewater. Neither that treated wastewater nor excess water in Lake Stamford is providing any financial benefit to the City,” Stamford Mayor Johnny Anders said in a news release about the agreement. “This water is a valuable asset we can now use to add dollars into our city budget.”In addition to using water conserving technology, Manroe said that Trailblazer will be among the most environmentally advanced coal-fueled power plants in the world, with state-of-the-art emission controls and cutting-edge technology to capture 85 to 90 percent of the carbon dioxide that would otherwise be emitted.The Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute, an Australian-based group charged with advancing the deployment of carbon capture and storage projects, recognizes Trailblazer’s importance and awarded the project approximately $7.7 million dollars to conduct front-end engineering and design studies (FEED) and report its progress to international leaders and industry experts.Manroe said the FEED study on the CO2 capture plant is complete, and it confirms that Tenaska’s plans to capture 85-90 percent of the CO2 can be achieved. The CO2 will be shipped via pipeline to the Permian Basin for use in enhanced oil recovery, thereby providing an economic boost to the region and helping increase domestic oil production by 10 million barrels annually. The Trailblazer project received its final air quality permit, the major permit required for construction of the facility, last December.Manroe said a number of other milestones must be achieved before construction can begin, including obtaining customers for the electricity and carbon dioxide, and securing state, federal and local incentives designed to encourage development of carbon capture and storage projects. “When these components are in place, a schedule for financing and constructing the energy center will be established,” she said.